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Anatomy of a Scene: “Annie Hall” (Woody Allen, USA 1977)

Annie Hall, one of the greatest films ever made, is at once devilishly complex and remarkably simple. On the side of simplicity, it wears its point on its sleeve and never hides what it’s saying for a second. However, it also is built on a remarkably complex narrative structure (essentially the same structure that director Marc Webb and writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber would use years later for the also-brilliant [500] Days of Summer [USA 2009]) and filled with the type of sophisticated, intellectual humor that only Woody Allen can pull off.

The film can be summed up quite well with two scenes: the opening and the ending. Technically, the ending as I am defining it is actually a sequence rather than a scene, but it’s my blog and there are technically very few scenes in Annie Hall longer than a few seconds.

Opening Scene

The film opens with Allen, by then a star both as a comedian and as a filmmaker, standing in front of a plain red screen and telling us a joke. The character, Alvy Singer, is also a comedian (though we don’t know that yet), and so he relates to the world through humor, even when he isn’t using it for the sake of humor. He tells the joke, but he tells it to make a point.

The joke ends with an explanation: “That’s essentially how I feel about life–full of misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.” Alvy Singer is now quickly defined for us–someone who has a sense of humor, but a sense of humor that is informed by a real sense of moroseness. We also now know something about how this film is going to work–it doesn’t care about the fourth wall and it lives inside Singer’s head. Originally, the film was much longer and included many more sequences like the one that follows this opening in which Alvy discusses his childhood. While the final film is no longer quite so much in his mind, we still have to know quickly that Alvy is our narrator and not exactly a reliable one.

“I would never want to belong to a club that would have someone like me for a member. That’s the key joke of my adult life, especially in terms of my relationships with women.” This may be more personal than any of you want to know, but I used to have a very close friend who told me that she loved Woody Allen, “because he reminds me of you.” I think this line is why. In general, the more I like someone, the more difficulty I have talking to them. Maybe Alvy and I are the only two people like this on the planet, but it’s an important thing to know about Alvy before the film really gets going.

The entire scene is just Allen in front of a red background. It’s not exactly the type of shot that turned cinematographer Gordon Willis into “The Lord of Darkness,” but the restraint and simplicity that Allen and Willis show here is great, and the red background is nice for the way it sets the scene apart from the “reality” of the rest of the film. Red is a decidedly unnatural background color, so this speech is clearly Alvy talking to us as an audience, not talking to someone who is in the audience’s position.

Aside: The Guy in the Movie Theater Line

Yes, I realize that I basically am that guy. (Though his opinions are ridiculous.)

Ending

While this scene is not continuous with the ending, it’s important to understanding the ending: Alvy arrives at a crowded outdoor L.A. restaurant in a long shot that barely allows us to notice him. He’s part of the crowd to Annie now, and as much as he doesn’t fit in with the style of these Californians, he feels like a background character when he’s out here. Allen then cuts to a close-up of Alvy as Annie walks by on the edge of the frame, entering the restaurant unseen and then joining Alvy for the final conversation. It’s shot in simple close-up one and two shots, always showing us whichever character is talking.

A few minutes later, when the ending proper begins, we get close-up one-two shots of two actors repeating the same conversation that Alvy and Annie just had. Then it moves to a longer shot showing us that it’s two actors working in front of a small group including Alvy. He has changed the ending of the conversation–he gets up to end it instead of Annie doing so and she changes her mind and decides to go with him. Then, a close-up of Alvy as he admits to the silliness by saying, “What do you want? It was my first play.” Again, the fourth wall is broken and Alvy relates to the audience through a telling humor. This time, though, one thing that’s different is Alvy’s face as he delivers the line. Before, while he was making a point rather than trying for a joke, he was also pleased with himself. This time, he’s disappointed–Woody Allen has never really been much of an actor, but he’s had his moments, and that look of discontent is definitely one of them.

Then, we get a short montage that begins with a long shot through a restaurant window of Alvy and Annie having lunch as Alvy tells us that they ran into each other and just caught up. It’s a distant shot like what we saw in the restaurant, once again telling us that Alvy is no longer part of Annie’s world but now, with both of them sealed off from the world, Annie is also not a part of Alvy’s. They may be together, but they are also apart.

The rest of the montage is just vignettes we’ve already seen of their relationship that are really just filling time for Alvy’s voice over until it ends with Alvy and Annie standing on a street corner shaking hands. Alvy is again reminded of a joke, “This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, ‘Doc, my brother’s crazy–he thinks he’s a chicken.’ And the doctor says, ‘Why don’t you turn him in?’ ‘Well, I would, but, uh, I need the eggs.’ I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships. You know, they’re totally irrational and crazy and absurd, but we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.” While he’s telling us the joke, he and Annie shake hands, he kisses her on the cheek, and she walks away. Then, the “Don’t Walk” light over Alvy’s head changes to “Walk,” and he walks away. It’s a pretty obvious message, but it cannot be delivered much more beautifully and succinctly than that street sign. And that type of obviousness, done well, is still effective, as Willis showed with some very respected otherworksofhis that you may recognize.

Maybe I’m something of a sucker for that message as someone who is far too shy and reserved to listen to it (After all, I have been trying for months now to find some way to learn to play this admittedly silly song–and yes I am mentioning it because I still am trying!) and I can admit thatit’s rather simplistic, but AnnieHall delivers that message as well as it can be delivered: relationships are absurd and crazy, but if we don’t go for them, we wind up just standing still while all the traffic passes us by on a street corner.